Fuck. This was not going to go well.
“Allow me to heal that for you, Lady Delilah,” he said in his stupid, fucking, annoyingly polite, regal way.
She and I both shouted, “No!”
But it was too late. He was already facing her, holding her wrist forcefully away from the wound, peering at the bare skin on her chest.
I was a High Lord until I saw him touch her—then I was only male. Amatedmale. I fast-traveled right into his fucking face. When I appeared, I was more flame than flesh.
I grabbed his wrist—the hand he dared lay on my mate—and crushed it with my bare hand. The sound was dramatic.
A muted, wet crunch beneath my palm.
His bones folded like brittle twigs.
His hand went slack instantly, fingers curling inward as the structure gave way. His healing light flickered and died as his wrist dangled uselessly.
Aurelius didn’t scream at first.
He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth — disbelief more than pain.
I couldn’t stop myself.
A raw, strangled sound tore from him. I leaned in closer, my voice low enough that only he could hear it. “You will not touch what is mine.” And then I let him go.
The females shrieked in horror.
Cercies knew better than to intervene. You never laid a hand on another male’s mate—especially the High Lord’s mate.
I could kill him for this. Ishouldkill him for this.
“I knew it!! I could tell by the way you’ve been acting; you marked her, you son of a bitch!” Aurelius snarled, bracing his dangling hand.
I reacted on pure, impulsive rage and drove a hard punch straight into his fucking mouth. The force of the blow sent him to the ground. Zephyros growled, but Draxxinar answered with a single, earth-shaking roar that silenced her.
I didn’t take my eyes off him.
“That’s none of your fucking business!” I growled “Test me again,” I said quietly, “and I won’t stop at your wrist.”
The Dragon Master spat out a mouthful of blood as he stood and summoned his healing magic again—this time to his own broken wrist. I turned my back and began to walk away when I heard him speak.
“Do you scent that, brother?” he asked with a wicked, blood-stained smile.
I turned and gave him a questioning look, wondering if I’d hit the fucker too hard and now he couldn’t form logical thoughts.
“That extra sweetness in her scent?—she’s almost at peak fertility,” he stated with a darkness that chilled up my spine, one vertebra at a time. It was a darkness from him I had never seen before.
My flames crept up my arms and rolled from my shoulders. “If you’re going to challenge the rank, then challenge it right here, right now—with me. Leave her out of it,” I growled as I stepped in close to his face.
I looked down at him to remind him how much bigger and stronger I was than him—how easily I overpowered him in every way.
With my flames scorching through the threads of my fire-resistant leathers, I grabbed him by his collar, raised him to my height, and matched his darkness with my own. He froze and said nothing.
“That’s what I thought. Aurelius the bitch— all bark and no bite, like usual.”
I released him, and he stumbled to his feet, disheveled.
I left the Master of Dragons behind to heal himself as I composed myself and reined in my anger so I could get back to smoothing things over with my mate. I mounted Draxxinar.
